How to use .NET User Secrets in MSTest classes

When developing unit and integration tests, we don't necessarily want to share the secret keys and values we use as credentials for APIs, databases, etc.

So similarly to how we implement User Secret functionality in Program.cs, we can implement User Secrets and set test class variables that use the secrets via the MSTest classes' constructor (ReferenceDataTests() below):

  public static string upsId = "";  
  public static string upsSecret = "";  
  private IConfiguration _configuration { get; }  
  
  public ReferenceDataTests()  
  {  
    // set your API ids and secrets in UserSecrets (right-click project: "Manage User Secrets")  
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()  
      .AddUserSecrets<ReferenceDataTests>();  
    _configuration = builder.Build(); 
    
    var secretVals = _configuration.GetChildren().ToList();  
    upsId = secretVals.Where(x => x.Key == "upsId").First().Value!;  
    upsSecret = secretVals.Where(x => x.Key == "upsSecret").First().Value!;   
  }  

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41941503/how-to-use-user-secrets-in-a-dotnet-core-test-project

ASCII art fun with .NET

My friend Benn with a nice largemouth bass

And here we have a simple function. Many thanks to its originator, Thinathayalan Ganesan.

You can find this in the Sonrai.ExtRS Nuget project under Sonrai.ExtRS.FormattingService.ConvertToAscii(Bitmap image) and see how it is used in Sonrai.ExtRS.FormattingTests.ConvertToAsciiSucceeds.

I talked a bit about how ASCII art works in a post on a similar Python script.

  // credit (Thinathayalan Ganesan): https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/generating-ascii-art-from-an-image-using-C-Sharp  
  public static string ConvertToAscii(Bitmap image)  
  {  
    string[] _AsciiChars = { "#", "#", "@", "%", "=", "+", "*", ":", "-", ".", " " };  
    Boolean toggle = false;  
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();  
    for (int h = 0; h < image.Height; h++)  
    {  
      for (int w = 0; w < image.Width; w++)  
      {  
        Color pixelColor = image.GetPixel(w, h);  
        //Average out the RGB components to find the Gray Color  
        int red = (pixelColor.R + pixelColor.G + pixelColor.B) / 3;  
        int green = (pixelColor.R + pixelColor.G + pixelColor.B) / 3;  
        int blue = (pixelColor.R + pixelColor.G + pixelColor.B) / 3;  
        Color grayColor = Color.FromArgb(red, green, blue);  
        //Use the toggle flag to minimize height-wise stretch  
        if (!toggle)  
        {  
          int index = (grayColor.R * 10) / 255;  
          sb.Append(_AsciiChars[index]);  
        }  
      }  
      if (!toggle)  
      {  
        sb.Append("\r\n");  
        toggle = true;  
      }  
      else  
      {  
        toggle = false;  
      }  
    }  
    return sb.ToString();  
  }  

The key is the assignment, pixel-by-pixel, of values to the reb, blue and green variables (and then "grayColor" variable) under the comment "Average out the RGB components to find the Gray Color". By getting the average of all colors in the pixel you can get the grayScale RGB color from Color.FromArgb(R, G, B). This grayscale RGB color is then used to select the appropriate ASCII character to represent the shade of gray in each pixel of the image.

• A darker pixel of an image will use an ASCII character like a "." or "-" or ":".

• A lighter pixel of an image will use an ASCII character like a "#" or "@" or "%".

In this way we can easily convert an image from its pixel-based source representation to an ASCII character representation. Essentially, a computer image is just a mosaic, or a composite of parts (pixels usually, sometimes ASCII characters- for art and fun!). 😃

Reference: https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/generating-ascii-art-from-an-image-using-C-Sharp

extRS Portal: a modern SSRS client

ExtRS Portal provides a blueprint for extending the functionality of Reporting Services 

 

extRS (pronounced, "extras") is a modern SSRS client for distributing and reading reports; with some extras. A demo of the app is linked here: https://extrs.net

   

The audience is SSRS report users (you know, the people you need to justify having enterprise reporting in the first place). So things like applying item-level RS security, managing users, and adding, editing and deleting SSRS catalog items and other system-level properties are not part of this client- at least not yet.

The aim here is to make SSRS at least slightly more interesting, accessible and useable for information consumers. This particuliar deployment of the extRS.Portal web client is connected to a report server with custom authentication (extRSAuth) which gets passed the normally required "Windows authentication" hamstring of the default SSRS installation. 

This wrapper and extension UI not only improve the user authentication experience and dynamism of SSRS parameter behaviors in the UI but also provide SSRS admins and other users with rich enterprise reporting usage and delivery data.

Enabled are the most of the features contained in Reporting Service's built-in Report Portal at /reports.

I have disabled some things like deleting and uploading items for the sake of keeping my demo of the app small and simple.

The source code can be found here: https://github.com/sonrai-LLC/extRS

tickertapes

Users can search for any word or phrase and opt for news of common financial market indexes

Originally implemented as "Twickertapes" and utilizing the original Twitter API (v2.0), this app is merely a demonstration of what can be done with a little text input, and API (the Google News API) and scrolling text and ASCII art.

You can find it on the web here: https://tickertapes.net